New Year, New You

It’s that time of year again, where the gym fills up, budgets are made and we promise ourselves, this is the year that we won’t break those well intentioned New Year’s resolutions! This year, while you are focusing on those extra pounds or that cluttered closet that’s been plaguing you for months don’t forget to stay focused on your business. What do you resolve to do in the New Year? Will you concentrate on more leads, better customer service, increased referrals? Whatever it is you are setting out to accomplish, remember the road to success starts with a good solid marketing plan, and now is the perfect time to get that plan written out. In addition to some measurable goals, your plan should also include what you have done historically (take the time to analyze what worked and what didn’t work in the past and why); what you are planning on doing in 2011; how and when you are going to do it (don’t try to do too much at once, be realistic in your planning); and how you are going to measure the success of what you are doing. Your plan should be a living document, once you create it don’t throw it in some file and let it collect dust, hold yourself to it and optimize it based on what’s working best. Here are a few tips that I hope will help get the ideas flowing and your 2011 marketing roadmap jump started:

If it’s not broken don’t try to fix it. If you find something that is working for you, don’t spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel, keep that tactic going and look for small ways to improve the program.

On the other side of that, beware of the “that’s the way I do things” mentality. Just because that is the way you have always done things, doesn’t mean that is the best way. Don’t be afraid of stepping out of your comfort zone. Change your angle of thinking and focus on what you want to accomplish, not how you accomplish it, this will help open your mind to new ideas.

Also beware of the “ooo shiny” it’s easy to get distracted by all the new and interesting tools and technologies entering the market every day. It can be hard to keep track of everything without feeling like you are drinking from a fire hose. When you are trying out new marketing tactics don’t take on too much at once, you will feel overwhelmed and ultimately end up failing. For example if you want to start a blog in 2011. Give yourself a few months to get the blog set up, start posting content and get comfortable with the process. Once you have mastered that you can start focusing on other objectives for your blog such as SEO and link building, increasing comments and content optimization and testing. Start small and create a scalable plan.

Always look for inspiration around you, whether it is real estate related marketing or not, it may spark a good idea (or show you what not to do). You can also use your good friend Google; the internet is a great resource for marketing ideas, for example read blogs of other REALTORS® and discover what they are doing that you could incorporate into your marketing plan.

For sharing: What will be different about your 2011 marketing plan from years past? What will be the same?